Suez Canal open again

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A tugboat pulls the <em>Ever Given</em> in the Suez Canal, Egypt, on Monday Associated Press/Suez Canal Authority

Salvage teams on Monday dislodged the massive Ever Given cargo ship that had blocked an essential pathway of international trade for nearly a week. Tugboats pulled the container ship through the water to reopen the Suez Canal in Egypt, and it sailed into the Great Bitter Lake for inspection. The ship ran aground during a sandstorm on March 23. The incident held up about $9 billion in global trade per day.

What does this mean for shipping? Traffic resumed on Monday evening, starting with vessels carrying livestock, said Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, the head of the Suez Canal Authority. Some 420 ships were waiting for the Ever Given to move. At least 113 should cross the canal by Tuesday, Rabei said. Dozens of ship crews ran out of patience and decided to sail more than 3,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost point of Africa instead.

Dig deeper: Read Daniel James Devine’s report about how the COVID-19 pandemic strained the global supply chain.

Rachel Lynn Aldrich Rachel is an assistant editor for WORLD Digital. She is a Patrick Henry College and World Journalism Institute graduate. Rachel resides with her husband in Wheaton, Ill.

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HANNAH.

What (or, more important, who) possibly could be in those shipping containers? An October 23, 2003, NBC News article: Human smugglers try new tactic states: “Adding new peril to an already dangerous practice, China’s human smugglers have dispatched at least one group of illegal immigrants to the United States inside a hard-top shipping container - a 40-foot-long steel box that gives its occupants no chance of escape if something goes wrong.”